Hagstrom - Rotary knobs ?

[David Rogers]

Hi,

I was thinking about a comment someone made in another thread about using rotary knobs with a Hagstrom KE-72.

Can anyone offer any initial pointers on how a rotary knob would work with the hagstrom ?

I would be looking for a simple conversion to a keystroke, ie... :

- Turning the knob left produces a keystroke, let's say CTRL+SHIFT+F4...
- Turning the knob right produces a keystroke, lets say CTRL+SHIFT+F5...

I've not looked at a rotary knob before, in terms of connectors, but presumably, it's a little different to the basic [on] / [off] toggle switch with it's two connectors ?

Thanks in advance!

:D

.

[Mike.Powell]

David,

There is a type of rotary switch sometimes called an impulse switch that has two sets of normally open contacts. Turning the shaft clockwise results in make and break action on one set of contacts. Turning the shaft the opposite direction produces make and break action on the other contect set. (See: http://www.mikesflightdeck.com/switches+indicators_1.htm in the section titled "An Alternative to a Rotary Encoder")

This sort of switch can be used with a keyboard encoder or emulator though is somewhat speed limited. Turn the shaft too fast and the contact make/break rate exceeds the ability of the encoder/emulator to keep up.

A few years ago a person posted a solution to the speed limitation on one of the Orbiter sim forums. He used a low end micro controller to accumulate the switch action and dole it out at an appropriately slow rate so as not to over run the encoder/emulator.

There have also been solutions based on using a grey-coded rotary encoder. A bit of circuitry decodes the encoder switch action and converts it into separate CW and CCW contact closures. Basically this converts the rotary encoder into an impulse switch, and has the same speed limitation.

[mounty]

Hi David,

It's similar to a three position switch. One contact goes to the center terminal (ground) and the other two go to different two terminals depending on how you want to set up the rotary - ie single click or double click. I have mine set up for the starters in the PMDG 737 and the neutral setting is Auto (or off), turning the switch to the left contacts Ground and turning the switch right contacts Cont. Here's how it looks in my set-up

IN61:[-] lt ign gnd
IN61|[-]

IN62:[=] lt ign cont
IN62|[=]

IN63:[+] rt ign gnd
IN63|[+] rt ign cont

etc.

So the one switch takes up two inputs on the Hagstrom. It sometimes gets screwed up a little - more to do with the PMDG I suspect.

Hope this helps

Rob

[Ron]

Hello Dave
I can tell you a little about the Hagstrom Electronics KE-72 board and rotary encoders.

I am impressed the KE-72 board. The breakout boards and the rotary-5 encoder boards are also things of beauty.

I have had the KE-72 wired into my simulator and working for about 2 years now and can’t say anything bad about the system. I can tell you that the Rotary–5 boards are of the same high quality as the KE-72.


I am currently building and wiring my Simulator radio and autopilot panels

Alpha Rotary Encoders 11MM ENCDR W/SWTCH.
Mouser Electronics part # 318-ENC111-20PS.

I have also downloaded a little program called Key2Mouse. You just add the DLL file to
FS2004 and that’s about it. Of course it cost a few dollars.
Key2Mouse is a utility that can assign key presses to mouse clicks on different screens in flight simulator. This software makes it possible for cockpit builders to connect buttons and switches via Key2Mouse to FS default commands.

In English! You can program key2mouse so when you turn the rotary encoder
The Encoder sends a command back through the Rotary-5 board to the KE-72.
The KE-72 outputs a keystroke!

Each click of the encoder sends the appropriate signal to the KE-72 it outputs a keystroke to FS and mouse2key translates that keystroke into a mouse click on a gauge.

Weather it’s a radio gauge / autopilot / altimeter they can be operated via the rotary encoders. Or so it seas here in the fine print anyway.

I have seen nothing posted on line on the subject but so far my experimenting shows it will work.

Hope this helps
Ron

[David Rogers]

Hey Rob, thanks but it wasn't the mulitple position switch I meant - I meant a rotary switch that would be used for something like an altimeter knob....so in fact not a switch at all but a knob.... but my queston was whether you culd buy one that wired up like a switch in order to give keystokes (instead of rotary encoding).

Cheers Mike, I'll keep an eye out for one of those types of knobs!

Ron - Thanks, that's interesting, however Key2mouse won't work in my application as I don't have staticly positioned gauges on the screen. I'm very interested in the Hagstrom Rotary 5 board though, will check that out!

Thanks folks :)

[donrecardo]

I know its a while since you started this post but as I havent been here long I only just found it.
I used a hagstrom ke72 with rotary encoders and it was very successful.

Using only one cheap encoder with built in switch I was able to set nav/com frequencies up or down Mhz or Khz using just the one encoder for each nav or com radio

if you think of the encoder as having 3 terminals, the middle one is ground
and lets call the outer ones pins 1 and 2

as you rotate the knob CW it conects the two pins to ground in the order

1, 1&2, 2, none

and if you rotate it CCW it gives
2, 2&1, 1 none
Thats how it recognises which way its being turned,
Now as you know on a keyboard if you press shift and letter 'a' it gives you
a capital 'A' but if you press 'a' and then shift you only get lower case 'a' because to have any effect the shift , ctrl and alt keys have to be the first key in a multi key sequence, so,,,,
if you conect the centre terminal of the encoder to ground on the ke72 and say pin 1 on the encoder to terminal 1 on your ke72 and pin 2 on the encoder to terminal 2 on the ke72
Now in the ke72, program terminal 1 to be the shift key and terminal 2 to be the letter 'a' when you turn the knob one way it gives 'A'
and turning the other way will give 'a' because as I said it only recognises the shift if shift comes first .
So now in flight sim you assign key 'A' to be say Nav1 Mhz increment
and you assign key 'a' to be Nav1 Mhz decrement
and now depending which way you turn the knob it will iether increase or decrease the MHz ( the part to the left of the decimal point) on the radio
Now if you remember I said you can get the encoders with a built in switch that is operated by pushing the encoders shaft in , so in ke72 if you set that switch in the encoder as being the Ctrl key and in flight sim assign
Ctrl 'A' to be Nav1 KHz increment and CTRL 'a' to be Nav1 Khz Decrement
so turning the knob left and right now adjusts the Mhz of the frequency
and if while pressing the knob in you turn it that will adjust the Khz

I used EC11B15244 encoders made by Alps , I got them from Farnell
but I imagine a CTS 228 would also work and are much cheaper and more strongly built , you can get them from the open cockpits site for 3 euros a time http://www.opencockpits.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=24&osCsid=9ebdcd7092b913bd088dbf8d9587b1a0

I no longer use the KE72 , not that it ever let me down but I moved over to
open cockpits cards as they not only allow me to use real switches as inputs I can also use LEDs and 7 segment displays, motors, servos etc as outputs , and they are suprisingly cheap compared to epic and goflight
Hope that helped
Don

[Holclo]

Don I wish to ask you a question on this subject but don't want to hijack David's thread so I will wait until he has come back to you before I ask.
Bill

[Bob Reed]

Mouser has a "Pulse" or Knitter switch that is a rotary switch. Complete 360 deg of rotation. These will work on your card as they are a switch not a rotary encoder. Turn the switch to the right get one switch output, turn it to the left and get another. Mouser part number is 105-SR10030-PS . Hope this helps.

[David Rogers]

Don - wow, that's really interesting. That's a great solution.

Bob - Cheers, that sounds pretty simple and arguably better aligned to my current level of electronics / wiring experience :)

Bill - Thanks for the courtesy, fire away!

Cheers,

[Holclo]

Bob has also answered my query. Now off to search UK suppliers to see if I can find these knitter switches over here.
Cheers
Bill

[Holclo]

On second thoughts Don's solution is really good. I wish to set the autobrake which has positions RTO, off 1,2,3 and max. I can already use (2) momentary push switches to - increase the setting (one switch) and decrease the setting (other switch). So Don your system would work wouldn't it?
Bill

[donrecardo]

Yes it should work fine on anything that needs an incremental or decremental
change, so would work in your application ok

The knitter type switch looks interesting, however I couldnt find any supplier except Mouser and even they say they wont be stocking it in the future

Don

[Holclo]

So Don can you explain in really simple steps how i connect this as i need 6 differnt positions RTO, OFF, 1,2,3, and Max for the autobrake. I assume I need to use 6 connections to the KE72
Cheers
Bill

[donrecardo]

If you say that at the momment you can do it with two mommentary push buttons where one steps the brake up and the other steps it down then you could do the same thing with an encoder using 2 inputs on your ke72

The common pin on the rotary encoder goes to Gnd and the other two pins connect to 2 inputs on the ke72 , lets say input 1 and input 2

program one of the inputs on the ke72 to be the Shift key with a line like
IN01:[(+)SHIFT][(-)SHIFT]
program the other input to be any letter key you choose lets say 'B'
IN02:[b]

In Flight sim you would assign the brake going in one direction as being operated with key 'B' and in the other direction with key 'b'

rotating the encoder one way will send out B B B B B for as long as you rotate it and turning it the other will send out b b b b b , therefore iether increasing or decreasing the brake setting

By the way , I looked around for the knitter switches that Bob put us on too as they sound usefull but the only place I could find that stock them is

http://www.4most.co.uk/miniature_rotary_coded.htm

I dont know if they will supply to private individuals rather than companies nor do I know if they have a minmum order ammount , It could be that you need to buy them in quantities of 100 or more

The only other place I found them is Mouser in the USA but they only have 130 left and say they wont be having any more

Don

[Holclo]

Don many thanks for that very clear reply. I will certainly try this. As I am currently building my base unit,MIP and pedestal it may be a week or so before I report back. Again many thanks. Will also follow your link on knitter switches.
Bill

[kiek]

Hi,

I do not want to spoil the party, not at all, just to let you know that I started cockpit building 5 years ago, also with a KE72 board (even two) and Knitter Switches. These Knitters worked reasonably well, but are a little bit 'jumpy' (don't know the right english word, but it is that you are not always sure how many pulses they will give if you turn the knob). But well you learn to live with it and for a year it kept me very happy and excited, just the excitement I recognise in this thread.

But if you continue with this hobby, the day will come that you also want feedback from your panel and control leds, and that is not possible with the KE72... :-[

So I replaced my two KE72s and my Knitters for Opencockpit Master cards and CTS288 encoders. A Master card (56 Euro) card gives you 72 inputs as well; you have the option to generate keys or, more advanced and more normal for cockpit builders, to change FSUIPC offsets, AND you have 45 outputs for leds.

Again, no offense, just some thoughts..

Nico Kaan

[Bob Reed]

Hi,

I do not want to spoil the party, not at all, just to let you know that I started cockpit building 5 years ago, also with a KE72 board (even two) and Knitter Switches. These Knitters worked reasonably well, but are a little bit 'jumpy' (don't know the right english word, but it is that you are not always sure how many pulses they will give if you turn the knob). But well you learn to live with it and for a year it kept me very happy and excited, just the excitement I recognise in this thread.

But if you continue with this hobby, the day will come that you also want feedback from your panel and control leds, and that is not possible with the KE72... :-[

So I replaced my two KE72s and my Knitters for Opencockpit Master cards and CTS288 encoders. A Master card (56 Euro) card gives you 72 inputs as well; you have the option to generate keys or, more advanced and more normal for cockpit builders, to change FSUIPC offsets, AND you have 45 outputs for leds.

Again, no offense, just some thoughts..

Nico Kaan

Very good point Nico! (no offense taken!) I agree with you. But the KE72 is a good starting point and for switch input you can keep using it even if down the road you switch to a more powerful interface.

[Holclo]

Yes Nico I also understand totally and was aware of the fact that the KE72 had,for example' no LED outputs. Looking around this site it is possible to imagine a cockpit full of lights etc. just as the really class builders have.But as Bob says we have to start somewhere and for guys with absolutely no knowledge of electronics or computer programming simply getting a switch to work is thrilling. Getting my autobrake working on a rotary will be another high! Meanwhile back to the garage where the MIP is taking shape (even my wife is impressed!!!) I haven't told her yet but I've just bought a CP Flight MCP and EFIS.
Bill

[Bob Reed]

Yes Nico I also understand totally and was aware of the fact that the KE72 had,for example' no LED outputs. Looking around this site it is possible to imagine a cockpit full of lights etc. just as the really class builders have.But as Bob says we have to start somewhere and for guys with absolutely no knowledge of electronics or computer programming simply getting a switch to work is thrilling. Getting my autobrake working on a rotary will be another high! Meanwhile back to the garage where the MIP is taking shape (even my wife is impressed!!!) I haven't told her yet but I've just bought a CP Flight MCP and EFIS.
Bill

REMEMBER!!!!!! It cost $58.00!!! So is there a bed or couch in there? You may need it!:p

[Holclo]

LOL - Yea $58 - I'm not afraid.!! Just going out for a few beers to celebrate. She knows I was thinking of doing it - no need to tell her I've actually done it!!!
Bill

[donrecardo]

Hi Nico
I didnt know you were on this forum too

I also pointed out in my first post into this thread that whilst the KE72 will work well that Open Cockpits was really the way to go

What I forgot to add was for the cost of a ke72 you can buy an open cockpits
master card + a usb expansion card
with those two you get 72 inputs , 45 outputs for leds etc , 4 inputs for potentiometers to control axis such as throttles etc you also get a conector to add 4 display cards each of which can control 16 seven segment displays,
you can also add a further 3 master cards to the usb expansion , and if thats not enough just add more expansion cards

Bill said in his post....
for guys with absolutely no knowledge of electronics or computer programming simply getting a switch to work is thrilling.

I agree entirely Bill but what you probably havent realised is that the Open cockpits gear is just as easy to program as the KE72 but is more versatile because of the outputs , and not just Led outputs, You can get cards for motors, servos etc so you can make real working gauges, but for me what was most important was its no more expensive than buying the KE72

Don

[Holclo]

Again Don thank you for your advice. I am committed to the KE72 as I received it as a Christmas present.
Bill